Planting Flowers in the Desert

I am a substitute teacher in Ulster County, aspiring to get a full time job teaching art. As a substitute I have been fortunate in being able to teach many different subjects to all different age groups and all levels of cognitive and physical ability. One of the tools that I have developed as a substitute to deal with gaps in plans left. I love to tell stories, and I have a few of them filed away for days when they are necessary. I was recently filling in as the regular teacher for a sixth grade class. The kids were really well behaved on this particular day, but during their snack time I could see the seams starting to come apart as the kids began to loosen up and push the limits. I decided I wanted to tell them a story and I started to develop a brand new idea that just seemed to come to life. It was really one of those moments where you realize you aren’t in complete control and when the time is right to give a message sometimes you are just the vessel. I wanted to write the story down because I was so touched by it. Here it is.

Planting Flowers in the Desert.

Sue and Drew are twins that live in a desert. Even though they look so much alike, they are actually the exact opposite of one another. Drew is a kind, caring, sensitive and extremely optimistic. He always looks on the bright side of things and is usually smiling. Sue, on the other hand, is a sarcastic, mean, and overall a negative individual.

Living in the desert can be hard some days, but Drew always looking on the bright side would say “Isn’t the sun shining so very bright today?” Sue would respond “Are you kidding me? It is so bright that I have to squint all day long.” Drew would thoughtfully announce, “The warm sand feels nice between my toes.” And Sue would dispute it saying “Ugh! The sand is everywhere. I can’t stand it!” One day Drew decided that he was going to start dropping sunflower seeds everywhere he went. Sue saw this and laughed “Ha, that’s a dumb Idea trying to grow flowers in the desert. You would be better off planting weeds, at least they might grow.”  Drew being extremely optimistic ignored Sue’s criticism, and just kept dropping sunflower seeds everywhere he went. Sue was so annoyed by her brother’s unyielding positive attitude that she decided that she was going to start planting weeds everywhere she went just to prove him wrong. This went on for months and months. Everywhere Drew left a sunflower seed, Sue left three weed seeds. After, many months Sue exalted, “See Drew, I told you. Look at all of the weeds that are growing everywhere. I told you that it was a waste of time dropping flower seeds in the desert.” Drew didn’t hear Sue say this because he was so excited over the long stem that started to grow higher than all of the weeds.  Sue came over to gloat over her apparent victory only to see the same thing that Drew saw. One Sunflower was growing tall above the weeds that covered the ground. The flower grew taller than both Drew and Sue so they were both looking up in awe as the flower opened up and bowed its face to the two in a gesture of gratitude for existing.

Drew turns to Sue and says “You see Sue, you were right. I would have been more successful to plant the weeds like you did. But all of your hard work yields only weeds. The best that you can ever hope for is more weeds. I don’t know about you Sue, but I would rather have one beautiful flower than a hundred spiny, spindly weeds.”

The End.

Everywhere we go we have the opportunity to be kind and loving to one another, and each kind act is a seed of a beautiful flower. We also have the opportunity to be indifferent, detached and inactive. This is doing nothing at all. We also have the opportunity to be cruel, advantageous and self indulged. This is like planting the weed seeds.  We all know how easy weeds grow, so it is up to you whether you live if a world of flowers or a world of weeds.

Oh My God

I recently came across a documentary film called “Oh My God”, directed and created by Peter Rodger. He goes on a global journey to ask the simple, yet earth changing question; what is God? You get the idea from the beginning that Peter is just another cynic trying to prove how detrimental religion is on society. Mr. Rodgers even says that he had expected for everyone to tell him why their God was the best. Accordingly what usually happens when one takes the time to do some research, and discover for themselves the true answers instead of relying on what we are told, the filmmaker stumbles upon many beautiful examples of faith and tolerance from every stretch of the globe.


It was a pleasant part of the journey to see the filmmaker’s heart open up, as he discovered more examples of the kindness of people when they are truly following the spirit of each of the represented religions. I was also moved myself to examine more closely my feeling towards other religions. When I was younger I immediately dismissed other religions, solely on the fact that they weren’t mine. I thought that they were wrong, violent, and against everything I believed in. I believed in their right to worship, but not in what it was they were worshiping. I think that there are a lot of Christians out there who exist in this thought plane. To paraphrase an old Saturday Night Live sketch “If its not Christian, ITS CRAP!”

I have recently been doing a lot of research on Buddhism and Shinto in Japan for a graphic novel I am working on. In the genesis of my research I was really hesitant as to whether I should read Buddhist scripts, being a Christian and all. A guilty mind asked; would these texts have the ability to cloud my mind, and steer me away from Christ? The further I read the more similarities I found. I began to become more comfortable and began delving further into the subject. I started to see how the different sects developed over similar social issues that caused splintering of Christians into many different sects. I learned that texts were translated differently when they traveled through Korea and through China, and were again modified when they reached Japan. But most importantly I learned that the ultimate goal in Buddhism is peace.

The film “Oh My God” pointed out to me a situation in the Muslim community that we also face as Christians. Extremist are misleading people using the isolation of specific parts of scripture to manipulate a situation, while conveniently ignoring the main point. Christians used the scripture to justify slavery, and some are still doing it to promote the hatred of homosexuals. These are both are in direct violation of Jesus’ order to “love one another as I have loved you.” Extremist in the Muslim community are using the Quran to justify the killing of Christians and Jews. While a majority of Muslims are like a majority of Christians, we just want peace.

It is my belief that people mostly want to promote peace and love. The media only portrays the corrupt and ignorant misuses of these systems, so if we don’t do our own research and find out for ourselves we will never know the full potential man has to live together in peace and tolerance.

The Mosque Debate.

Recently the nation has been in an uproar about the proposed Mosque/community center that is scheduled to be built in the neighborhood of the site of the 9/11 attacks. To start off NYC is a religiously as well as culturally diverse place. I can’t drop statistics on people because I cannot find a pair that agree, which is another story altogether. What I have found to be true is that there are more than 100 mosques in the city, plus an unknown number of small mosques that worshipers set up in their apartments or places that are not visible from the street. There are an estimated million Muslims in New York City. (Some sources claim 1.4 million; the New York City Community Affairs Bureau states the figure as 800 000.) With that being said, these citizens are protected under our Bill of Rights, as much as anyone else is. If you are an American, you cannot disagree with the following statement.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It is the first amendment. The reason we fought for our independence from Britain. If we as a nation wanted to dictate what, where, when, why, and how people worship, why is this first natural right that we as Americans claim? How can you tell one citizen that they do not have the rights that others do, based on their religious preference, without seeing the obvious hypocrisy .

How can our children give their lives for these freedoms, only to have them revoked by the same crotchety old men that sent them there in the first place to liberate a country just enough to take all of the rebuilding contracts and give them to our own company. Basically we have been building up this resentment towards foreigners since they made us change our names at Ellis Island. Now we forget our roots, we forget the reasons we had for claiming independence from Britain. We even forget the heritage that we may have left behind in order to assimilate into this amalgamation culture. Now we are Americans, we’ve been here long enough that we don’t want strangers coming in and changing everything, taking jobs we don’t want, wearing clothes we don’t like, and building community centers that offend our vaguest connection to the devastation that was the attack on the Twin Towers. The community in which the attack was felt the greatest has given their approval of the project, yet people who live hundreds to thousands of miles away think that they should weigh in, and that their opinion should be heard; “because damn it, I’m an American and if I am offended by a Mosque that is being built in a neighborhood that I will never visit, then it shouldn’t be built. We will have to alter the inalienable rights to; life, liberty and the pursuit of Justice, and… never getting your feelings hurt.” If we knock out this pillar of our foundation as a nation, the rest is sure to come crashing down.